
CWCapital attorney Greg Cross (Photo courtesy of Venable)
By Sabina Mollot
It was the biggest bust of the last real estate boom, but a lawyer battling over Stuyvesant Town money claimed everybody won.
“Listen, everybody connected with this property is making a lot of money,” said Greg Cross, an attorney for CWCapital.
Cross was in court earlier this month defending his client’s right to a half-billion-dollar payment for services rendered during the period when CWCapital ran the complex and serviced the debt on the original $3 billion mortgage rung up by Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty which was sold to investors in five securitized tranches.
In October, investment giants Blackstone and Ivanhoe Cambridge agreed to buy the East Side development for $5.3 billion and signed a deal with the city to preserve 5,000 affordable apartments.
Ahead of the sale closing, the latest in a long line of lawsuits surrounding the complicated financing deals negotiated for the property drew to an end with the plaintiffs withdrawing their complaints.